Overview of the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR

Overview of the BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK for Adobe AIR

The BlackBerry® Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR® lets you to create applications for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™tablet, which runs the BlackBerry® Tablet OS. This SDK allows you to create Adobe AIR applications that leverage the Adobe AIR 2.5 runtime environment that is built in to the BlackBerry Tablet OS.

The BlackBerry Tablet OS is a multitasking operating system built upon the reliability and power of QNX® Neutrino® RTOS. Designed specifically to run applications developed using Adobe® Flash® and Adobe® ActionScript®, theBlackBerry Tablet OS offers developers the opportunity to create new and compelling applications and games, or to simply adapt existing ones to a tablet platform.

Adobe AIR applications are built upon Flash and ActionScript technologies commonly associated with web content. However, because they run in the Adobe AIR runtime environment rather than in a plug-in to a web browser, they function as standalone applications. Additional ActionScript APIs, for use only within the Adobe AIR runtime environment, allow your application to access to a richer set of functionality than browser-based applications. For more information about Adobe AIR application development, visit http://www.adobe.com/products/air/.

Developing Adobe AIR applications for BlackBerry Tablet OS

The BlackBerry® Tablet OS SDK for Adobe® AIR® allows you to optimize your Adobe AIR applications for theBlackBerry® Tablet OS. This SDK provides APIs that extend Adobe® ActionScript® 3.0 and allow you to develop applications that have the look and feel of native BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet applications and take advantage of some of the unique features of the OS. These APIs provide some unique UI components and predefined skins and enable you to listen for events specific to the BlackBerry Tablet OS, such as a swipe down event from the top bezel (the touch-sensitive frame around the display area of the screen).

The BlackBerry Tablet OS supports the Adobe AIR 2.5 mobile device profile. The Adobe AIR 2.5 mobile profile was developed to provide the critical improvements in performance and reduction in processor usage that were necessary to bring Adobe® Flash® based applications to mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. APIs have been added to ActionScript 3.0 to allow Flash applications to access some of the functionality that is unique to mobile devices, such as access to accelerometer and geolocation information and support for touch and gesture events.

The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet includes the Adobe AIR 2.5 runtime environment. Applications developed for this runtime should be fully functional on the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with no additional development required, save for adjusting the application for the unique screen size of the tablet.

BlackBerry Tablet OS security architecture

The BlackBerry® Tablet OS is a microkernel operating system. Microkernel operating systems implement the minimum amount of software in the kernel space and run other processes in the user space outside of the kernel space. By running non-critical processes in the user space, the BlackBerry Tablet OS can manage unresponsive processes in isolation from others. This helps prevent damage to the operating system and other applications.

The microkernel architecture of the BlackBerry Tablet OS enables the following features:

• The BlackBerry Tablet OS is designed to be tamper resistant. The kernel performs an integrity test when the OS starts. If the integrity test reveals damage to the kernel, the BlackBerry Tablet OS does not start.
• The BlackBerry Tablet OS is designed to be resilient. The kernel can restart a process without negatively affecting other processes. All applications run in the user space.
• The BlackBerry Tablet OS is designed to be highly secure. The kernel validates requests for system resources. An authorization manager evaluates requests from applications to access the capabilities of the BlackBerry®tablet device. For example, when an application requests access to the camera, the authorization manager displays a dialog box that specifies the capability requested, and the opportunity to grant or refuse access to that capability.

The BlackBerry Tablet OS is designed to verify the authenticity of an application. All applications that run on a tablet device must be signed by the RIM® Signing Authority and a Developer Certificate. For more information about accessing the RIM Signing Authority, see Signing your application.

Accessing restricted functionality

The BlackBerry® tablet has functionality that can capture rich information from its environment, like the GPS receiver, a microphone, and so on. To help protect against potentially malicious code, users must grant your application access to the functionality. If an application uses APIs that access restricted functionality, and the application does not request access to a device capability, the application cannot start.

You must specify the device capabilities required for your application by adding one action element per device capability to your blackberry-tablet.xml file. For more information about creating a blackberry-tablet.xml file, seeConfiguring your application.

The following table lists values for the action element. You can use these values to specify the capabilities and APIs that are that are required by your application:

Value	Capability	API
access_internet	Access remote resource by using a network connection	Any API that accesses the Internet.
access_shared	Access the shared file system	The following APIs might require this permission if they try to access the shared directory: flash.filesystem.FileStream flash.filesystem.File flash.media.CameraRoll flash.media.CameraUI
play_audio	Access the audio controls	qnx.media.MediaControl flash.media.Sound
read_device_identifying_information	Access the PIN and serial number of the tablet.	qnx.system.Device.pin qnx.system.Device.serialNumber
read_geolocation	Access the current location of the tablet	flash.sensors.Geolocation
record_audio	Access the audio stream from the microphone	flash.media.Microphone
set_audio_volume	Access the volume control	qnx.media.MediaControl
use_camera	Access data from one or more cameras	flash.media.Camera flash.media.CameraUI

Folders accessible by an application

The following table contains descriptions of the folders that an application can accesss. Each application has access to its own working directory in the file system, and might be able to access the shared folder. All path references in your application are relative to the root of the working folder.

The Adobe AIR API property File.desktopDirectory maps to the root of the working folder.

Folder	Description
app	This folder contains the files that were installed with your application. These files were packaged with you BAR file. Your application has read-only access to this folder. The Adobe® AIR® API property File.applicationDirectory maps to the folder app/air.
data	This folder contains the application's private data. The application has full access to read and write files in this folder. The Adobe AIR API property File.applicationStorageDirectorymaps to this folder.
tmp	This folder contains the application's temporary working files. The application should remove these files regularly. The BlackBerry® Tablet OS might remove these files any time the application is not running.
logs	This folder contains system logs for an application. Stdin and stdout are redirected to this directory.
shared	This folder contains subfolders that contain shared data by type. An application cannot write to this directory.
shared/bookmarks	This folder contains web browser bookmarks that can be shared among applications.
shared/books	This folder contains eBook files that can be shared among applications.
shared/clipboard	This folder contains data copied or cut from another application.
shared/documents	This folder contains documents that can be shared among applications. The Adobe AIR API properties File.documentsDirectory andFile.userDirectory map to this folder.
shared/downloads	This folder contains web browser downloads.
shared/misc	This folder contains miscellaneous data that can be shared among applications.
shared/music	This folder contains music files that can be shared among applications.
shared/photos	This folder contains photos that can be shared among applications.
shared/videos	This folder contains videos that can be shared among applications.
shared/voice	This folder contains audio recordings that can be shared among applications.